With all this talk of change in the world, it has finally inspired you to get up off your couch and do something about global warming. But where do you begin? Do you start with an energy audit or cooking a vegetarian meal? Do you buy a bicycle or a hybrid?
There is no end of conflicting information out there on how is the best, and perhaps quickest, way to go green. To help you out, we have compiled a list of our favourite green guides – with something for everyone - from the penny pincher eco-wannabe to the glamorous green gal who refuses to sacrifice style for the cause.
Ecoholic
It is not an overstatement to say that if you want to buy one green book about Canada, buy this one. Author Adria Vasil has compiled her popular Now Magazine columns into the definitive green guide to Canada. Everything your little Canuck hearts need to know about living more lightly can be found in Ecoholic.
Ecoholic has a similar layout as other green “how to reduce” books —covering the normal range of topics — beauty, clothes,
food, kids, home, sports, garden, etc., but what makes Ecoholic stand out is the depth of research into the subject matter. Vasil doesn’t just offer flippant green facts; she offers a detailed look at each of the subject areas. Each of the 12 chapters offers similar detailed info on how to make intelligent choices to green every aspect of your life — from the kids to condoms to ethical investing.
Go Green, Live Rich
Best-selling financial expert and author David Bach has turned his expertise to convincing people that they really can get rich from saving the environment. Go Green, Live Rich covers the many economical ways it makes sense to live more lightly. Switching from bottled water to tap water will save $500 a year and reduce waste in the landfill. Eating a vegetarian meal a week is cheaper and means less use of precious resources like water – producing one kilogram of beef uses 60 times more water than producing a kilogram of wheat and 400 times more than a kilogram of potatoes. Nursing your baby saves more than $40 a week and is much better for the baby’s developing immune system and strengthening the mother/baby bond. Go Green, Live Rich is a persuasive economic argument in favouring of going green – great for people that still need more economic reasons to justify going green.
Gorgeously Green
Gorgeously Green: 8 Simple Steps to an Earth-Friendly Life by Sophie Uliano, with a foreword by Julia Roberts, is a flirty lifestyle guide geared towards eco-city gals who want to live a very full life without harming the planet. However, Uliano is not some vapid city gal suggesting we can all consume as much as we want as long as we buy hemp panties or vegan lipstick. The eco-message in Gorgeously Green is much more expansive and places quite a lot of emphasis on health and well being as part of going green. She also includes information on animal rights, organic eating, living with less and how to become an activist. Gorgeously Green walks the fabulously fine line of being motivational, upbeat and factual without being too perky and oversimplified.
How to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint
How to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint by Joanna Yarrow is a simple, cheerful guide to save energy, resources and money. Bright looking and easy to use, this is a great guide for the eco-newbie. Yarrow explains that ‘small changes can add up to big results for the planet’.
The book is laid out in easy to follow sections – Heating & Cooling, Electricity & Electronics, Cooking, Washing & Cleaning, Gardening & DIY, Shopping, Children, 
Work, Leisure, and Transport. Everything you need, right? How to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint is much more solution-focused than data-focused. Some of the how-to-green-your-life-books on the market get so caught up in dazzling us with details that they forget the information about actual implementation.
Living Like Ed: A Guide To The Eco-Friendly Life
Ed Begley Jr. is an eco-hero and his latest hot title is just part of his ongoing contributions to the green world. He has worked tirelessly to educate people about the need to go greener for years and finally his message has become fashionable. In Ed’s latest offering, he details how we can all live more simply – whether you live in a condominium or in a private home, whether you rent or own.
Perhaps what sets Living Like Ed apart is that he actually does all the things he writes about (evidenced by the various photos of Ed in action), but he also works to make the eco-world accessible to everyone. Renters are often demographics that are ignored in green guides – the assumption is that you can only go green if you own a home. Living Like Ed provides a cost-benefit analysis of implementing the various green solutions included in the book to further entice you to go green. A great accessible guide from an eco-hero.
The Encyclopedia of Country Living
The Encyclopedia of Country Living: The Original Manual For Living Off The Land & Doing It Yourself by Carla Emery is in its 10th edition and remains one of the best selling ‘back to the land’ books on the market. Emery covers simply everything you ever wanted to know about homesteading, living off the grid and having a simpler, more natural way of life.
Readers will learn how to give birth without a hospital or anyone to assist you, care for and bury the dead, make a quilt, plant a food garden, store food for the winter, make a loaf of unleavened bread, can pickles, use a solar oven, grow peanuts and soy, make your own cosmetics, forage for wild food, tap for maple syrup, cook on a woodstove, prune a tree, dig a root cellar, make vinegar, home butcher animals, make soap, create rugs and clothes from animal skins, understand cow psychology, churn butter, keep beehives, and a few popular recipes for cooking with lesser known (and somewhat unappetizing) sheep bits – to mention just a few of the topics covered in the definitive green guide.
The Green Book
The Green Book: The Everyday Guide to Saving The Planet One Simple Step at a Time by Elizabeth Rogers and Thomas M. Kostigen just might be the quintessential simple green guide, chock full of eco-facts and statistics, the younger set have all been waiting for.
Ever wondered how many pens Americans use each year? Or how much pesticide can be eliminated by switching to organic tampons? If you require answers to any of these burning questions, consider picking up The Green Book. (Just in case you were wondering, Americans discard 1.6 billion pens each year. If even one in twenty women switched to organic tampons, it would eliminate more than 750,000 pounds of pesticide annually.)
The Virtuous Consumer
Right from page one, author Leslie Garrett lets us know that she is not an extreme environmentalist; someone who chains themselves to old-growth trees, raises children diaper-free, makes her own soap, etc. Instead, she is just an average American consumer, wanting to make some changes and willing to take a kick at the old environmental can.
Essentially, Garrett has written a book that will appeal to the other half of the planet: “The harried mothers of too many kids, driving their off-spring to and from school in minivans or (gasp!) SUVs. Those of us who live in too-large houses, with too-large swimming pools and think ‘vegan’ is the name of the nasty guy in Oliver Twist”. The Virtuous Consumer is geared towards the individual caught up in a consumption cycle aspiring to live a bit more lightly and in need of a few pointers in the right direction. The Virtuous Consumer covers most topics relevant to women today (yes, definitely geared towards women), from cosmetics to organic baby clothes to how to manage a clean, green home without toxic chemicals. Garrett also includes eco-info on cars, energy efficiency, pools & hot tubs, pet food and pest control. The Virtuous Consumer is a good guide for the beginner environmentalist who wants to know how to green their world, step-by-step, product-by-product.
Wake Up and Smell the Planet
Wake Up And Smell The Planet: The Non-Pompous, Non-Preachy Grist Guide to Greening Your Day, edited by Brangien Davis and Katharine Wroth, is just what you would expect from those crazy kids at Grist Magazine —humorous, topical and full of well-written articles. And like the title says, this green guide will show you how to green your day without the usual dose of shame so normalized in the eco-movement.
The Grist-isms start with the typical morning routine in most North American green homes — with a shade grown organic coffee —and takes the reader on an easy to follow journey which includes walking the family dog with a biodegradable flushable poop scoop bag, going to work by bicycle, enjoying left-overs for lunch, returning home for a meatless gas barbeque, a bit of pesticide-free yard work, and finally to finishing up the day with the eco-vibrator session and falling asleep on organic sheets. Each section is written in the familiar irreverent Grist style, offering plenty of facts to support the transition to greener choices.
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